DIGITAL TRENDS 2015

We stand at the doorstep of a brand new

year, ready to enter and see what 2015 has

to offer. Looking back at the previous years

and the speed of digital development, it is

fair to assume that 2015 has a lot in store for

us. I asked some of our consultants what

they see as the major trends that are going

to hit us this year.

OMNI-CHANNEL COMMUNICATION

Omni-channel will continue to dominate the conversation in

2015. We have already moved from multi-channel to omni-

channel and we see this “movement” in the many faces of

technology. The latest Sitecore release will show a magnitude

of possibilities to control, manage and maintain all your active

marketing channels in one place: websites, microsites, data,

retargeting, social, CRM, email marketing, sales and so on.

2015 will not only be about conversions, but also about focusing

on the experience you deliver, which is what drives your

conversions.

INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION

Derives from the previous trend and even though it may not be

a new thing, it is very much relevant for marketers. To be able

to set up your marketing efforts through automated

mechanisms like trigger-based responses, proactive follow-ups,

programmatic personalisation, sales cycles, recommendation

engines and more. The (technical) ability to automate you

marketing is key in 2015 and will prove to be a huge

competitive advantage. Building the right strategy around your

marketing automation platforms (MAP) is what makes the

difference between failure and success.

SEMANTIC WEB AND SEMANTIC SEARCH

2015 will be the year where big companies finally understand that search engines are the

“great equalizer”, allowing small businesses to successfully compete with big ones in

organic search. Concepts like Semantic Web and Semantic Search will become trendy,

but still stay vague for most digital and marketing companies. However, Semantic Web

will grow rapidly using more technologies for querying across many types of related

information. Search engines will become the knowledge base fed and curated through the

Social Knowledge Graphs and big knowledge databases such as DBpedia, Freebase,

YAGO and many others. Terms like triples, entities and nodes will start becoming more

and more popular.

On the other side will be the Semantic Search. A new era of how search engines parse

our queries in search. Modern search technologies (NLP, statistical modeling, information

retrieval, etc.) will allow these game changers to understand the user intent, the context

around it and rank the results based on many new and different factors than today (e.g.

brand sentiments, topical breadth and depth, etc.)

MOBILE ELEARNING

With the ubiquity of mobile devices, mobile eLearning will

become increasingly used for accessing learning

material. Although desktop eLearning applications will not be

completely replaced, more and more learning/support materials

will be available through mobile devices, which makes the

content more digestible and contextual for the user.

STORYTELLING

Probably the oldest trick in the book, but only recently have we seen this being utilised

and amplified across organisations, in the way they brand themselves, their products and

services. With the increasing control and judgement of the consumers, brands and

companies have to adapt to these changes. It is no longer enough just to sell a product by

specifications — you have to convince the buyers that your intentions are good too and

that you will engage in a long-lasting relationship with your customers. The “stuff” around

the products and services becomes just as important to users (initially), as they buy into

the story of the product as well.

So start showing, that you are real people with real values, that you believe in your

products and that they will integrate seamlessly and add value to the daily lives of

millions. Then you move from story-telling to story-selling.

CUSTOMER JOURNEY

The Customer journey is still a hot topic. For designers it has been

around for a while, but it still holds huge potential for most

companies who still have not realized the value and opportunities

of creating customer journeys to understand how their customers

shop. We believe that more companies will understand how much

customer journeys can benefit them in 2015.

DATA OPENNESS, TRANSPARENCY & ETHICS

The increasing consumer knowledge about companies harvesting

their behavioural data also raises increased concerns about the

usage of this data. According to an Opera Software study,

Americans are more worried about violations of their online privacy

than losing their job or bankruptcy. A study from Orange shows that

77% would like to know how their data is being used to generate

digital trust. Creating transparency on how collected data is used

and making it modifiable for the consumers will create a higher

level of trust between your digital presence and your digital

audience. Apple and Google have already announced that in 2015,

they will offer tracking opt-out on mobile devices.

DIGITAL SERVICE DESIGN

The current biggest trend in Digital is the use of digital media in areas outside of

marketing or sales. Digital service design is the fastest growing area within

digital agencies and it will continue to grow for the years to come. This trend has

stemmed from the fact that for a long time, companies (no matter the industry),

were faced with an almost frozen competitive situation where price reductions

have been the best tool to win over new clients. For years, this was achieved by

i.e. moving production to cheaper countries. Now we have reached a turning

point as cheap countries become more expensive and consumers become more

aware of the environmental costs for keeping production costs low. Supporting

local businesses has never been more hot. The trend is now to support local

companies that keep your own local area vibrant and interesting.

DATA VISUALIZATION

Every day there is more data available that can be interpreted and

visualized. Understanding the available data and finding the best

visualization methods for it, recognizing the difference between

good and bad data visualization, is the next “Big data” step in

sorting usable data.

SMART HEALTHCARE

It is a question of who comes first and how governments will

regulate and adapt to this inevitable need for increased awareness

and information on your own current health status. By using digital

and of course wearable IoT, the people will be highly and properly

informed about their health, they will be proactive in self-diagnosis

and disease awareness, they will manage and control their own

health profile online across connected devices, corporations and

divisions

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AI will be big in 2015 and a catalyst for disruption in many markets,

including the market for content management systems. The CMS

market is divided between lots of different players, with the key

players only making up a very small part of the market. The rest

are small fish, some of which are trying to disrupt the market, while

the big players are buying anyone with innovative technology to try

to avoid disruption.

Players like https://thegrid.io/ are using AI to automatically generate

websites based on the structure and performance of other websites

in the same vertical/industry. I think that kind of AI innovation will be

a big digital trend in 2015.

ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS

Near Field Communication Payments will take off in 2015,

changing consumer behaviour forever. With NFC chips placed in

more and more devices (Android, Windows and Apple phones), the

day where we are all using our mobile phone instead of our credit

card to buy things seems a lot closer than ever.

MULTI-DEVICE INTERACTIONS

The multitude of sensors, 3D and virtual reality can be woven into

entirely new applications that the web has not seen yet. Using

multi-device interactions and innovative technologies like WebGL

(Web Graphics Library) and WebVR, we can create experiences

that allow completely new interactions with content and our

audiences.

ROBOTICS ENGINEERING

One of the most exciting changes is the possibility to search and find

information through semantic connections. Technologies such as Google

Now and Siri are only two successful examples of that. I am utterly

convinced that in 2015, we are going to learn more about how search

engines and big databases will become favourable to robots. By diving

into pools of knowledge databases, robots can now understand more and

more entities and nodes. In other words, in the future, robots will rely on

structured data created and used by search engines. This will allow them

to answer questions more accurately and take certain actions. Just

imagine: “A robot that could query online ’how-to’ videos could then learn

how to perform a wide variety of household tasks.” MIT Technology

Review

SHARE ECONOMY

Airbnb cemented this phenomenon in 2014 and I think we will see

an explosion of related sub-digital services in 2015, which will

enable “ordinary” people to share anything online/offline. Sharing of

houses, cars, apartments, rides, lawnmowers, you name it. This is

of course both a huge challenge to traditional retailers, but can also

be a huge opportunity if they manage to adapt and respond to this

change in effect.

Are you prepared for the future?

Contact us if you need help with your future digital strategy.

valtech.dk

mari-ann@valtech.dk